We are creatures of habit. Monday, you go back to work and during your break (cough) catch up on all the breaking news from the weekend. Except, this was no ordinary Monday (Sept. 5). It rained on Sunday in Atlanta, sending ripples of consternation through the entire NASCAR community and creating a void of intriguing morsels to chew on over the water cooler. And now, it is raining on Monday, resulting in a nearly unheard of Tuesday race — we hope.
Mother Nature is extraordinarily talented at screwing up our lives. Personally, she’s been playing havoc with mine for over two weeks now. A co-worker of mine bought one of those “End of the World” disaster kits, the unusual and alarming number of not-quite-disasters happening in our neighborhood having sent his sense of equilibrium plummeting off into space. Now, I’m not about to panic (I have a towel in my desk drawer, though) but I have begun wondering if we’re paying for something.
I understand there are regions of this planet who handle things like earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, flash floods and the resulting postponement of their lives with regularity. I do not live there. And NASCAR with its enormous entourage of teams, reporters, retailers, PR reps and assorted flotsam isn’t a sport that can easily swerve to miss the elephant in the middle of the road.
Thus, when my Twitter feed began exploding with a wide variety of “What do we do now?” statements by NASCAR media and teams on Sunday night upon the rescheduling of the race, I could feel the stress they were enduring caused by not driving in the rain. Sort of a déjà vu of my previous week, if you will.
However, the world is not ending. Not really. Atlanta will be under a bit of water after the latest incarnation of a hurricane passes through, on its way toward my neck of the woods (again? Thank you!) And the jet dryers will still work on Tuesday morning. The drivers will fly back in from Charlotte. The random reporter might sit in the mostly silent media center. Life will not be quite right. Not wrong. Just not what it should be. Sort of incomplete, off kilter.
In case you missed it, there was racing this weekend. Kyle Busch even managed to sound magnanimous in defeat to a dominating Carl Edwards in Saturday’s Nationwide Series race. That sounds close to what a headline post-Sunday race might be, doesn’t it? Reed Sorenson declared he would be hunting rabbits after his teammate Justin Allgaier took out his No. 32 in one of them racing deals. L’il Gator should find a deep hole, no matter how sorry he might be.
And Baltimore hosted a pair of street-racing events, with IndyCar and the American Le Mans series lighting up their new downtown circuit. Honestly, what more could we have asked for? I even heard mention of a Ms. Patrick during all this four-wheeled entertainment.
The fact is we’re fine; a little soggy and slightly bored, but still in one piece. Mother Nature has not gotten the better of us, yet. The Chase has yet to be set and we still have two races to run. We can look forward to these last two Cup events despite the delay and a temporal shift. Life as NASCAR knows it will go on.
Unless, of course, we don’t run an Atlanta race at all. Then the world just might come to an end. Maybe I should go buy one of them disaster kits.
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The Frontstretch Staff is made up of a group of talented men and women spread out all over the United States and Canada. Residing in 15 states throughout the country, plus Ontario, and widely ranging in age, the staff showcases a wide variety of diverse opinions that will keep you coming back for more week in and week out.
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